>> What you did is, you made a down-payment on a phone that cost in the
>> vicinity of 200 USD and up, and you and others on the same network are
>> going to pay for that phone in installments which are worked into your
>> regular charges and calls.
>
>Yup. Nothing wrong with that. I'm often happy to take a loan from someone.
Now you are talking my language.
Then take a loan for your phone and pay it off all by yourself.
Unfortunately that is not what subsidised phones are about.
>I don't buy this "creating bubbles" thing. Lots of companies in lots of
>industries extend credit to consumers to encourage them to buy things.
>Every American auto manufacturer does lending as well, and how about
>those time payment plans on stereos, televisions and furniture?
If it only were like that, that would be ok. Unfortunately it isn't.
Taking the example of the car, if you wanted a suitable analogy for that,
then you would get a 25000 $ car at -say- 3000 $ and you'd pay a monthly
membership of -say- 250 $ which includes 50 litres of petrol, but you'd
also be forced to only buy petrol from the company you signed up with and
the litre would cost you 5 $. Of course, if you use your car a lot, you
could sign up for a 600 $ membership a month and get the litre petrol for
only 3 $.
And because the system has created an inflated pricing structure, even
those people who pay for their cars full price, they will not get the
petrol any cheaper, the only thing they get is that they can change
memberships more easily and go with another petrol network as soon as
prices change.
Then, you'd get people throwing their cars away after a year because the
petrol networks have upgrade-your-car deals and lure-churning-customer
deals and more and more money is sunk into paying for new cars while the
old ones are still working and the car industry is having the ride of their
lives. Numbers go up and up and up. Investment that would otherwise have
gone into more useful things such as -say- research for new medicines, such
investment now goes into building more and more car plants because no other
industry can compete with the artificially upped returns on car
manufacturing investments. A bubble has emerged and will continue to grow
until someone pulls the plug. Such as would be the case when the level of
car subsidies has reached the point where some petrol networks cannot
compete anymore.
In order to survive the suicidal subsidy spiral, they seek to lower the
subsidies on cars, which increases their negative churn dramatically and
revenues drop accordingly. Sooner or later they will put out a profit
warning and the investors are gobsmacked. A petrol network with a profit
warning ??? In this booming industry of industries ??? How is this
possible, what the heck is going on there ??? Then someone cries woolf and
analysts ruch in to explain that this whole subsidising was a bad idea in
the first place and that most companies in the industry are overvalued and
it cannot go up that steep anymore. Now everybody get worried and investors
start to pull their money out. The petrol networks suddenly have a hard
time to finance their businesses and are not prepared because it was
previously so easy for them to get funding no matter how crazy the idea
they wanted funding for. Many of their business plans are now in jeopardy,
they have to cut back. Of course car subsidies are one of the first things
they start cutting and customers simply don't upgrade their cars anymore.
Car manufacturers see their sales tumble and profit warnings follow. Some
car manufacturers have to lay off workers and shut plants. There was simply
too much car plant capacity. The bubble is bursting.
Trouble is, will this get petrol prices back to where they would have been
without car subsidies in the first place ?
Far from it. Due to the new situation where petrol networks and car
manufacturers have to recover for some time, they will keep prices for
petrol as high as possible to use profits for recovery and car
manufacturers cannot afford to sell their cars any cheaper either.
TANSTAAFL !!!!
Someone has to pick up the bill eventually. Guess who ?!
Yes, that's right. It's us !
>> Have you ever thought that Japanese(predominantly male) managers and
>> engineers are exploiting the young ladies with all those toy phones that
>> have to be thrown away and replaced simply because they want to keep their
>> bubble growing ?
>
>Oh, this kills me. Take a walk around Shibuya. You think phones are the
>only item subject to fashion around here?
Take a look at the context please. Someone was bringing Dansonjohi up and I
granted his whish to work it in.
>I could, and do. I've got a P209i (60g), and I have several friends with
>a P209is (84g). I've compared the two and there's a pretty noticable
>difference, enough to give me a strong preference for mine.
Well, this reminds me of the joke where three kids were bragging about
their fathers. I don't remember the entire joke anymore but the aim was to
show small size and the winning kid bragged "My father fell from the ladder
and broke his leg when he was picking strawberries".
>If you really want to see the difference, I suggest you carry your phone
>around in your shirt pocket for a week.
Well, my Japanese phone is a Sanyo C405 and I believe it weighs 62g. It's
so tiny that there is no belt holder for it and I do have to carry it in
the shirt pocket which makes it fall out when I bend over. I know the
difference and I prefer the Nokia.
regards
benjamin
[ Did you check the archives? http://www.appelsiini.net/keitai-l/ ]
Received on Fri Jul 27 21:28:16 2001